The Abidjan-Ouagadougou Railway Concession

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Abstract

Since the 1980s, most Sub-Saharan
African railways have been experiencing a severe crisis:
declining traffic and revenue, lack of market orientation
and poor service, continued operation of high-loss passenger
services, poor maintenance, gross overstaffing, lack of
technical and financial discipline, and heavy financial
losses. Attempts to 'restructure' railways as
public entities have generally failed. Involvement of the
private sector in railway operations under a concession
arrangement now seems to be a promising tool for
transforming railways into business-oriented enterprises.
The concession technique, successfully applied in Latin
America, was used for the first time in Sub-Saharan Africa
in Cote d'Ivoire and Burkina, who jointly concessioned
the Abidjan-Ouagadougou railway to a private operator in
December 1994.